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Picturing a Life Free of Violence: Media and Communications Strategies to End Violence Against Women Contents Preface iii Introduction v How to Use this Catalogue ix 1 DOMESTIC VIOLENCE 1 2 SEXUAL ASSAULT AND COERCION 21 3 HARMFUL TRADITIONAL PRACTICES 31 TRAFFICKING AND COMMERCIAL 41 4 SEXUAL EXPLOITATION 5 HIV/AIDS AND VIOLENCE 47 6 A LIFE FREE OF VIOLENCE 55 Contacts for Materials 71 Index of Countries 77 ii Acknowledgements This publication is dedicated to women’s organizations throughout the world who generously shared their materials for this endeavor, and whose incredible creativity inspires us all. It would not have been possible without the enormous support of the dedicated team at UNIFEM Headquarters and Field Offices and the Media/Materials Clearinghouse at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs. Special thanks are owed to Noeleen Heyzer, Joanne Sandler, Rema Nanda, Roxanna Carrillo, Micol Zarb, Rabya Nizam and Ruchira Gupta at UNIFEM for their encouragement and invaluable advice and to Susan Leibtag, John Harbold, and Aaron Brady at the Johns Hopkins University for their expertise and patience. UNIFEM would like to express gratitude to the United Nations Foundation whose grant supports continued efforts to use media and communications to end violence against women. Jenny Drezin, Editor iii PREFACE A monsoon in the desert. Through heavy wind and swirling sand, we see the image of a baby. The image changes into that of a girl, a young and then elderly woman. The woman stares into our eyes as the narrator asks: “All over the world there are more women then men. In South Asia over 74 million women are missing. Why?” The image is striking; the statistics chilling. And in thirty seconds, the Public Service Announcement (PSA) poignantly highlights the scores of South Asian women who do not live a full life cycle, the victims of gender-based violence. The PSA underscores the potential power of media and communications to spotlight pressing issues of violence against women, changing attitudes, providing critical information, and ulti- mately encouraging action to eradicate such violence from our homes, our neighbourhoods, and ...media and the larger global community. While such violence continues to devastate lives and shatter com- communications munities, media and communications can become a powerful partner for transformation. can become a Strategies reaching mass audiences have helped break the stigma and change the culture of quiet acceptance surrounding gender-based violence. Timely and targeted media and communi- powerful cations materials touch the heart as well as the mind, impact on people in profound ways, and partner for support and empower them to create change. transformation. UNIFEM encourages the transformatory power of media and communications in amplifying its Strategies own advocacy efforts. Our partnership with media in coordinating inter-agency regional campaigns to end violence against women, in orchestrating a global video conference, and in supporting reaching mass media and communications strategies though our Trust Fund in Support of Actions to Eliminate audiences have Violence against Women have all yielded critical lessons and much sought-after materials. helped break Similarly, media and communications materials and strategies have been successfully used in the stigma and local, regional, and global campaigns around the world to end violence. Like UNIFEM, our part- ners—other women’s groups and alliances, government agencies and a host of other organiza- change the tions—have produced and conceived powerful and innovative communications materials as culture of quiet strategies for specific campaigns and as part of ongoing awareness-raising efforts. acceptance The motivation for this publication, and the electronic database accompanying it, was to consoli- surrounding date and highlight a selection of successful strategies and media materials created and used around the world. This publication showcases the wealth and variety of global strategies through gender-based reproductions of these materials and descriptions of communications methods for awareness violence... raising. It is an attempt to facilitate information sharing between organizations working on simi- lar issues of violence against women, so strong and effective strategies can be replicated in other regions and contexts. While by no means an exhaustive set of communications tools and strate- gies, it contains select geographically diverse materials employing powerful themes with cross- cultural appeal. And because it is accompanied by a much larger electronic database containing thousands of materials available via the Internet (www.endvaw.org), this collection can be increased, constituting an updated communications resource base. iv As we continue the struggle to eradicate gender-based violence, we have more and more oppor- tunities to utilize such resources. It is significant that this publication is being launched on November 25, designated by the United Nations as International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. As the international community increasingly recognizes the scope of this pandemic, we can benefit from the creative vision and guidance of our partners and bene- factors. UNIFEM has been fortunate to receive generous support from the United Nations Foundation (UNF) to undertake the considerable work required to put this collection together. We express our appreciation to UNF and other donors to the Trust Fund, as well as the hundreds of groups that generously shared their creativity and collections for this endeavour. Noeleen Heyzer UNIFEM Executive Director Example of adaptation of materials: This poster from the Zero Tolerance Campaign in ...was adapted for use by the Center for Women War Scotland... Victims in Croatia. Text from the poster reads “From 7 to 77 women can be raped.” v INTRODUCTION How Materials and Strategies in this Publication Were Chosen Careful creation, Understanding what kinds of messages truly affect people is no easy task. Nor is the answer the distribution, and same across countries and cultures. What serves as a powerful symbol in one country may not dissemination be recognized in the next. The use of photos versus drawings, actors versus animation, abstrac- tion versus realism are particularly important and sensitive issues when working to end violence can mean the against women. difference Furthermore, social, economic, and political inequities within different cultures reflect varying between a radio access to media and communications technologies. PSAs aired on television are virtually useless programme that in areas relying on radio as the main source of information. Striking print slogans miss entire seg- no one ments of illiterate populations. Packaged materials, posters, or information kits may fail to com- municate their intended message if the media and message are not pre-tested with their intend- remembers, and ed beneficiaries beforehand. Careful creation, distribution and dissemination can mean the dif- one that ference between a radio programme that no one remembers, and one that becomes part of the becomes part of popular culture. the popular Recognizing that the creation of strategic communications materials and strategies is a compli- cated and sometimes subjective process; that there is no such thing as a perfect material or culture. model strategy; and that thousands upon thousands of awareness-raising materials have been created around the world, how did we go about the task of choosing the materials included in this publication? The first step was to identify existing media and communications strategies. After looking at resources created as part of Trust Fund projects, a call was put out though UNIFEM’s “end vio- lence discussion list”, an 18-month electronic working group involving 2,500 activists and advo- cates. We received posters, videos, PSAs, cassettes, CD-ROMs and information kits from around the world to add to our already existing collection at UNIFEM headquarters and at the Johns Hopkins Media/Materials Clearinghouse. All of the materials featured fit the definition of violence against women adopted by the UN in the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women and restated in the Beijing Platform for Action at the Fourth World Conference on This message appeared on buses throughout South Africa as part of a campaign launched by the NISAA Institute for Women’s Development. vi Women in 1995: “Any act of gender based vio- lence that results in, or is likely to result in physi- cal, sexual, or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary detention of liberty, whether occur- ring in public or private life.” Scanning these hundreds of materials and cam- paigns, we chose materials on the basis of strength and consistency of message (both visual and text), innovation and creativity, and poten- tial for replication within other countries and contexts. We also took into account theme, geographic diversity and intended audience. Practical Use of the Catalogue With the objective of “idea sharing” in mind, we structured the materials in this catalogue Winner of youth poster competition held by thematically, rather than geographically or by UNIFEM Caribbean Office. medium. For the purposes of this publication, we used the following definitions/classifications: Domestic Violence refers to acts of violence perpetrated within the domestic sphere such as bat- tering, incest,